Paper Tiger

Given that a standard Stryker infantry platoon wth standard ammo, or even a scout platoon, has 12 javelins at their disposal the suggestion that increasing the number of enemy tanks to rebalance the game is simply absurd for two reasons... the first is that you would need to endow the enemy side with an absolute minimum of 12 tanks per stryker platoon. And if there were a full US Stryker Company, you're talking about more than a battalion of tanks. Now, if we follow c3k's logic, these tanks are merely included in the game to soak up the javelins that we can't otherwise delete from the game. Yes, you can reduce the US ammo supply but even with the lowest settings you still get 1 and that means a minimum of 4 tanks per platoon that are just there as cannon fodder. After you've blown those dozens of tanks up, you've then got potentially dozens of frame-rate killing burning wrecks scattered all over he battlefield before you can get down to the REAL action. (Yes, you can argue that it's not a given that 1 javelin equals 1 dead tank but it's pretty close to that when they're being used by a competent US player who knows how to deploy his javelin teams) the second is that, without any other AT assets, ie Stryker ATGM's or tanks, when the US Stryker force runs out of javelins, they have almost nothing left with which to hurt enemy armour. And that's not funny when it happens. Therefore the BEST way to balance these scenarios is to give the US an realistic OB that includes tanks when there's the possibility that they'll be fighting tanks. Cpl Steiner's suggestion is a good one for those of us who'd like to reduce their influence in the game without denuding the US Inafntry of their ammo and it's not an unrealistic proposition. You can just cut the boring armour slaughter-fest out and get straight into the action. The mission starts after the enemy armour has been eliminated...

To the best of my knowledge, BFC haven't announced anything about QB changes in the Marines module. While I don't think we'll see those new 'meta tiles' for some time, giving the player greater control over the forces in the QB could feasibly be part of the Marines package. After all, this is probably the biggest single issue that most people still have with this game and BFC have known about it almost from day 1.

Thanks for that. The AI side is MY side. Saudara Part 2 is a really good place to get stuck. It's one of the best missions in the campaign and I love playing it. I really should try to get a stand-alone version of that mission done sometime.

The RED side in CMSF has a large array of tanks and equipment. It starts with the emplaced version of the T-54 and then you have two different models of the T-55 and the T-62 and several widely differing versions of the T-72.

As hoolaman said, the graphics in the first three CM games are way out of date now. They were never cutting edge even in their day but boy, were they good wargames. I still play the occassional game of CMBB even with the crappy graphics because the gameplay is so good and my imagination can do the rest for me. CMSF is a completely NEW game engine and, once again, it's graphics are not state of the art but I have to say that I think they're still really good. Check out a couple of my screenshots to see what the game is capable of when you run it at the highest settings. That's wahat it looks like when it runs on my rig which isn't THAT hot. You are very fortunate to be discovering CMSF at this point in it's development as it is now a very polished product and has already exceeded all MY expectations. It really wasn't very pretty when it first came out so don't place too much importance of games reviews that were puiblished 9-12 months ago. Yes, the game deserved some of those poor reviews but it certainly doesn't NOW. It's also about toi get even better. Sometime in the next couple of months BFC will release the first of a number of modules planned for this game which will give both sides much needed new equipment as well as further enhancements to the TAC AI, the AI that governs how both sides units behave when they are following thier orders. The only possible reason I could think of that may turn you off the game is that it's set in the desert and designed primarily to be played as the US side against the Syrians. But the designers have allowed us to create missions, campaigns where you can play Red v Red. Or in TOW terms, Russian v Russian. This makes for a more interesting game in my opinion. Modern era combat is wickedly cool.

Yes, Red v Red is a good way to get a 1980s conventional battle going but I think the real problem with the current Blue v red match up is that we don't have real cutting edge Red stuff to match the cutting edge Blue stuff. BFC have said that they will release a new CM game set somewhere in the temperate zone in a year or twos time. If THAT features the most up-to-date Rad stuff, that would be AWESOME! Then I'd be more than happy to play Blue v Red.

Sorry, I should have typed import, not open. Anyway, WMM won't import the FRAPS file because of a codec issue. I did a search on the internet earlier and found this to be a common problem with FRAPS but no solutions.

I can't really bring myself to play red vs blue though I remember one occassion when I was playing a quick battle as the Syrians against an AI US force. I got a company of T-72 TURMS and the US got a company of infantry in Strykers. Of course, they couldn't use their javelins and I slaughtered them. I will never forget the sense of horror that overtook me when I was playing that. I have never tried to repeat the experience.

I like it better than Hasrabit, because the force type is much more appealing to me. I have to agree too. I plan to do another mini campaign like this with lots of tanks with a single infantry company. I really like the T-62MV for the urban battles as their big gun is very effective against infantry in buildings. I remember giving Mishga's mini campaign with a whole US M1 company a run through and being disappointed with the M1's performance against infantry in buildings. This was simply because I was in the middle of playtesting mission 1 in Perdition and so I was able to compare them directly. Anyway, I'm glad you enjoyed it. If you play it again, you'll probably get a completely different experience.

There doesn't appear to be much happening here at the moment so this would be as good a time as any to ask you guys about this. How many of you guys play Red on Red scenarios/campaigns? If the answer is yes, how often and what do you like about it? If the answer is no, then why not? I'll start. One look at my sig will tell you that I play Red on Red almost exclusively. Why? My, my first reason for not playing Blue with greater frequency is because the Blue equipment is just TOO powerful for the poor Syrian force to handle. After I finished work on my last little project, I decided to give the first mission an outing with US forces in place of the rebel forces and I forgot all about ... javelins! They REALLY are game balance killers. But they're real and the US Army uses them so they have to be in the game. They are equally devastating against infantry as they are against armour. Equally unbalancing are the Abrams M1 series of tanks. Like javelins, they're are real and can't be excluded from the game either by the developers OR scenario designers. I'm certainly no expert on the subject but I'm pretty sure that in a conflict such as is being represented in CMSF that the US military uses combined arms with great effect both in and out of the cities. I really wouldn't expect the US Army to be fighting infantry only actions EXCEPT in their current peacekeeping/policing role in Iraq and Afghanistan. However, please correct me if I'm wrong. And that brings me to my second reason; I want to play modern era conventional battles like meeting engagements, assaults on small villages with tank battles, infantry and their vehicles or clashed between two armour heavy forces (super-cool!). I can't really play these kind of missions either with or against the US as the US pretty much wipes the floor with the Syrians. Now, please don't tell me that I'm wrong here. Believe me I've tried and it just isn't the same as doing it with Red v Red. Not even close. Now, positive reasons for Red v Red. I can actually play realistic conventional warfare battles between two evenly matched foes without having to create asymmetrical victory conditions. It may work for some but for me... "hey, my force got wiped out but I still won the scenario because I managed to kill 7 of your guys"... really doesn't light my fire. No criticism intended either. It's just not MY idea of a challenge so it's MY loss. Also, the Red side has some pretty interesting gear at it's disposal as well. I LOVE the heavy machine gun teams, the grenade launchers and, my new love, the recoilless rifle. Not to mention a very wide variety of tanks and ATGM weapons ranging from the completely CRAP T-55-1970 and the AT-3B ATGM through to the T-72M1V TURMS-T and the AT-14 ATGM. And there's a really good spread in between these two poles. Against US stuff, even the best of this equipment is pretty poor but against other Red stuff it really comes into it's own. For whatever reasons, I feel that the Red on Red aspect of the game is overlooked or ignored by players. There are very few scenario designers producing Red on Red stuff which is a real shame. No doubt when the Marines arrive there'll be a HUGE number of new scenarios to be played as the US v the new Syrian equipment and very little for us Red on Red guys. There are more than enough scenario designers doing US v Red stuff so I'm going to work on something that will let you really enjoy the new Syrian equipment instead of trying to blow it up.

Groan... well, WMM can't do anything with the FRAPS files because of some codec issue. I have Vista Home 64 bit installed and it's ALL legit so what do I need to get WMM to open these files? BTW, since the Marines module only costs around $25, I'm definitely NOT going to spend money to do this as I can't see me doing this again.

tankibanki I'm looking at the units purchased in the scenario editor right now and there are only four T-72s in the mission. For some reason, I only saw three when I playtested this mission but I WANTED four. I added another to the force so that I'd SEE four but when I make changes to the OB I save a separate version of the scenario to playtest. The final version isn't 'descended' from that one so there really shouldn't be five. Be glad that there are only four; I originally wanted 7! FMB will tell you how much fun that was. The Tumah Crossing mission is meant to be very hard on your tanks. The tank battle can be very intense and great fun even when you're losing it. But it's GREAT when you see the last one of those buggers blowing up. I had my best CMSF experiences playing the Tumah and Flames missions. I'm happy to share it with you guys. *********SPOILERS********* Using artillery against the watchdogs in mission 3 is definitely a good tactic but it's VERY unreliable. I always did this when I playtested but only twice got kills, from at LEAST 20 playtests! Good luck with the rest of the mission. Look forward to hearing how it ended

If you've got them ALL, then you've got enough to last you until the Brit pack arrives next year. You might want to give some of the Red v Red stuff a go too. It's very different and will show you a whole new side to CMSF. And no doubt there'll be a flurry of new stuff after the Marines module arrives. Happy hunting!

By the way guys, this was designed to be played a few times. It can easily be played through in a single weekend or a single day if you have the time. There are five AI plans for the first mission and some are better than others. The other missions have two each.

Well... me, of course but I think you'd prefer to hear from somebody else. I hope you have a really hot graphics card and processor because if you finish mission 2 with few losses as well, they'll really have their work cut out for them. I'm looking forward to hearing how you get on.

Since you guys will have the full rights to whatever I post, I guess that'll be up to you. 'CMSF: The Movie'.:cool: I'm not sure I'm going to be able to do this as the FRAPS file sizes are GINORMOUS, and I don't have a lot of space left on my hard drive. I'll putter around with it though as I'd really ike the free Marines module. The triple Matrox prize thingy would just be a bill for two new high spec monitors. I can't see me selling that to the wife especially as I'll be touting for a new processor as well as a brand spanking new HD DVD player before the end of the year.

Cheers. I've found Movie maker so I'll start dabbling around with it later today. Using Fraps to record movies is a REAL memory hog though!!!

So how does one go about making one of these videos? I have FRAPS and it will record but I have NO IDEA how to go about editing and adding subtitles etc. I have a bit of time on my hands just now so if it's not too difficult and doesn't require TOO much time, I might be tempted to try making one.

Okay, first of all, you didn't need to remove the original qb maps. Some of them are actually very good but don't worry, that's not going to be a problem. Then you unzipped all the qb maps you downloaded from CMMods into your QB Maps folder? If you've already done that, then you shouldn't really be having a problem. But lets continue... Now, you go to the main menu in the game, click on Quick Battles and you see a number of parameters. Terrain type, size, time, battle size etc. You don't get to pick your map, the game does it for you. It selects one randomly from your QB folder maps depending on the terrain and size parameters you selected. If there's not a map in your folder that matches the parameters you entered (very unlikely if you unzipped everything), you return to the main menu with no warning. As for forces, be prepared for a bit of a disappointment as you can't pick your forces, only the size of them and roughly what type. You are definitely going to get some pretty spectauclarly BAD match ups. But occassionally you get a winner too. But please don't focus too much on the QB system. The scenario editor in CMSF is the REAL star of the show. There are some brilliant scenarios waiting for you both on your hard drive and at CMMods, trust me. Once you get a feel for the modern era combat, you won't look back and you'll be lusting for CMx2 WW2 when it comes sometime next year. IMHO, this is the best wargame EVER but presently, the QB system is below par.

I posted something a few weeks ago ago saying that I was going to post a v3 after the Marines module came out. Well, we're still waiting and I've got some time on my hands after finishing Perdition so today I started 'upgrading' the first mission in Hasrabit, 'Ambush'. It was one of the first QB maps I ever made and I didn't change it very much for Hasrabit. And frankly, that battle was quite basic. Not anymore! Now, it has three AI attack plans and it looks stunning. After the Marines comes out I'll probably release it as a stand alone battle. It might even work as a Marines v AI Red too. If time permits, I will also do a bit of a rework on 'Saudara Part 2' to make the map look better. I might as well reward those people who are willing to play this twice.

If I put in 'Enemy Condition 30%' should I put in 'Friendly Condition 70%' No, the numbers don't have to add up to 100 so don't worry about that. Let's use an example to illustrate the effect... The US player has 100 crack soldiers, the Red player 200 poor soldiers. Not a fair match up perhaps so we want to make things harder for Blue to win. We set Friendly Casualties as 5% and give the player 100 points for fulfilling this condition. That means he can lose up to 4 soldiers and earn this bonus. 5 or more and he gets nothing. Or we can set Friendly Condition at 25% and give the player 100 points. I never use these two conditions together, just one but there's nothing to stop you from doing so. For Enemy casualties, we set Blue's parameter as 90% and give him 100 points for fulfilling that condition. That means he must kill ... (yes you know) ... 181 enemy troops to earn this bonus. Or we could do the same for Enemy Condition, probably slightly better. Again I don't mix these up. Okay, so that means Blue can earn 100 points for ending the mission with less than 5% casualties or 4 casualties and he gets another 100 points if he kills 181 enemy troops. Fine, so that's Blue. Now lets look at Red. Same scenario. Obviously, it's going to be a tough ride for those Syrian boyos so the conditions will be different. We set Friendly casualties (or Condition) at 50% and give him 150 points if he can finish the mission with more than 100 troops. And we set Enemy casualties at 8% and give him 150 points if he kills 9 or more Blue soldiers. Therefore, Red earns 150 points if he kills 9 US soldiers and another 150 if he loses less than 100 troops when the mission ends. Note that we don't HAVE to set Red's Enemy casualties at 5% because of Blue's parameters. We can set that value any way we want but obviously it's better if Blue's Friendly casualties parameter is lower than Red's Enemy Casualties parameter and vise versa Hopefully that will help you understand some of the basics. Or perhaps I've just confused you further?

Interesting. I just read this review of 'Hasrabit' on CMMODS posted yesterday by some guy called Jkob. 'good maps, but that's about it.,the designer will block every possible way to the objective, just to lead you ( by swamps, walls, etc) to the ambush where a crack platoon and elite tank will blow you away.some people call it fun.,dear desingers- infantry do cross swamp, and walls!!! ' I really can't beleive this guy has actually played this campaign because that doesn't describe a single mission in it. :confused: Unfortunately, as the designer, I can't post a riposte to him in CMMODS. Once BFC get the scenario upload section of theis site up and running I will stop posting stuff at CMMODS as I'd prefer to have the opportunity to say it ain't so when somebody posts such an egregiously flawed review.

I think you'll find your answer in this thread... http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=72658

I'd imagine if you can't read the text then that would be a very good reason for not liking something. Just be grateful that it's not an issue for you.

HEY, the guy in the middle... I KNOW him! Cool